


Anxiety as an Integer

by tallpaleandanxious



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Repairs, c-3PO has anxiety, does this count as a sickfic?? idk, malfunction, oh my god they were counterparts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23876326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tallpaleandanxious/pseuds/tallpaleandanxious
Summary: When C-3P0 suffers from a malfunction, R2-D2 must link up with him in an attempt to find a solution, only to discover a little more than he bargained for in the process.
Relationships: C-3PO/R2-D2
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	Anxiety as an Integer

R2-D2 retracted his arm from the bowels of the x wing and gave a bleep of frustration. This particular model had been acting up for weeks now. It's pilot had kept complaining that it's steering wasn't responsive enough, although her colleagues had insisted it was her questionable piloting skills that were the problem. R2-D2 though had a hunch that she'd been right, and so he'd spent much of his spare time in the hanger tinkering around in the hopes he could find the root of the problem, to no avail. He was just about to begin yet another check of the accelerator pistons when the sound of voices pierced the silence.

  
‘I just don't understand it...he was fine this morning!’

  
‘Well something must be wrong with him. I've never known him use language like that before.’

  
‘At least old metal micky here finally learned something useful…’

  
‘You just can't handle being told the truth can you.’

  
‘By a droid no. But by you princess...anytime.’

  
‘Can we please _focus_ a moment here...I've checked all the hardware and nothing seems to be malfunctioning. What are we gonna do?’

  
‘Scrap him.’

  
‘Han!’

  
‘Well we've got to do something… I can't even get him to reboot.’

  
R2-D2 wheeled himself out from underneath the x wing to see Han, Leia and master Luke walking across the hanger, followed closely by Chewbacca who had something lifeless and golden slung over his shoulders. A jolt of fear surged through R2-D2s systems. Threepio.  
Quickly he rushed over to the unconscious droid in a flurry of stricken bleeping.

  
‘I know buddy.’ Said Luke sympathetically, ‘we’re worried too.’

  
‘If it's not a mechanical problem, ' said Leia, looking at R2-D2 thoughtfully, ‘it could be a software error.’

  
‘It's possible.’ Said Han. ‘I've always thought he was a few bits short of a program.’

  
Leia glared at him reproachfully.

  
‘Listen buddy,’ Said Luke leaning down on one knee so he was level with R2-D2. ‘D’ya think you could link up with Threepio and run some diagnostics?’

R2-D2 bleeped enthusiastically and spun his dome around. He wasn’t sure what exactly was going on, but he knew his friend was in trouble, and he would do whatever it took to help him.  
‘Alright.. let's get the pair of you down to maintenance…’

…

'Are you ready buddy?' Asked Luke.

  
R2-D2 gazed sadly at his friend. He looked so vulnerable, nestled among the tangle of wires and blinking monitors. Of course R2-D2 had seen him deactivated before, but on those occasions he had always known he could be switched on again. This felt different somehow. There was no pointless rambling. No fussy complaining or petty insults. No light behind those big round eyes. No life at all. The thought that this empty shell might be all that was left of his friend was not a comfortable thing to contemplate. He bleeped in acknowledgement.  
Luke smiled. ‘Atta boy!’ and then added more gently. ‘Good luck.’

R2-D2 had never directly linked with the software of a protocol droid before. Unsurprisingly, he found several cores of C-3P0's processor had been given over to the analysis of languages, and he had a much more complex set of algorithms for the control of motor function than R2-D2 possessed, but other than that everything was more or less as he had expected it to be.  
There were the usual bugs that had been hastily patched over, and programs that had been bolted on top of other programs in an attempt to integrate some salvaged part. In some places so many different bits of code were stitched together there was no way of telling what, if anything lay underneath it all. But that was how all droids ended up, in the end. Most had been wiped and re-purposed and repaired so many times there was very little of their original selves left. Like an old broom with a new brush and a new handle, Droids would start as one thing and end another, living out hundreds of lives in the time that they were functional. Every new incarnation unaware of those who came before.  
R2-D2 himself was an exception to this rule. He would always be thankful he had managed to escape having his memory wiped because droids, unlike organic organisms, weren't born with personalities. Instead they developed them over time, from recorded experiences and learned behavior. R2-D2s memories were quite literally a part of him. They were what made him who he was, and without them he would be little more than a blank chip...  
A blank chip... he thought to himself sadly. While he was careful not to admit it, it had been hard for him to stand by and watch C-3P0's memory being wiped. It still pained him to remember how, on rebooting, those familiar yellow lamps had stared at him as though he were a stranger. It was as though the clock had been wound back, to a time when he was a new and innocent thing. Too naive to even realize he was naked without an outer casing. It had taken a lot of persistence on R2-D2s part to rebuild their relationship, particularly since C-3P0 had no idea why an astromech had taken it upon himself to follow him around everywhere. But time had eventually wound forward again, bringing new memories to replace the old, and after a lot of effort and even more bickering, things had gone back to how they were.  
The scars though still remained.

  
As R2-D2 dug a little deeper he could see that C-3P0's systems still bore the evidence of having been recently wiped clean...could that be what had caused him to malfunction? No…. Whoever had handled that had done an extremely thorough job. There wasn’t a scrap of the old data left, and every lost connection had been thoughtfully patched up. In fact It had been done so completely R2-D2 began to wonder if it might have been easier to just do a factory reset...

  
But they hadn’t.

  
Which meant his personality code had been left untouched.  
Quickly R2-D2 found the directory where C-3P0's personality code was kept. It wasn’t a particularly big folder. It sat unobtrusively above his logic processor, colouring the black and white of his calculations, with a spectrum of emotions. R2-D2 was about to open it when he hesitated. Normally he would have enjoyed seeing C-3P0 in such a state of vulnerability as It would have provided him with ample fuel for a few choice insults some time in the future, but this felt different….. To open it seemed oddly intimate. Like he would be prying into something that was meant to be kept hidden. To use its contents as the butt of a cheap joke felt almost disrespectful. R2-D2s circuits crackled with unease as he thought of what his friend would say if he knew what he was about to do. ‘Here’s hoping you never find out, you rusty old fool.’ he thought grimly, and he opened the file.  
All at once, he found himself drowning in a flood of data. A torrent of ones and zeroes that had been sequenced to form thoughts and feelings, ideas and preferences. Code that had been gathering for as long as C-3P0 had been activated. Code that somehow or other, through time and experience and a little spark of something undefinable, had assembled itself into an approximation of a consciousness. But as he waded through the tide, what surprised R2-D2 most wasn’t that C-3P0 had a suppressed liking for Bach (there were several recorded instances of him humming it when he thought know one was listening) or that he apparently found Huttese to be an infuriatingly uncouth language. No...

It was the fear.

  
At least 60 percent of the code he’d scanned so far was in response to some kind of fear. There were plenty of the obvious candidates, like blaster fire, or falling, or being attacked by wild beasts. All things that C-3P0 had contended with at sometime or other, but among them were others. Strange things. Things that most droids wouldn’t even give a second thought.

  
He was afraid of dropping things when he’d picked them up.

  
Of walking into a door while everyone else was looking.

  
Of a leg falling off at some inopportune moment. (To be fair R2-D2 had seen This happen and it was bloody funny).

  
Of people making snarky comments about him behind his back.

  
He was afraid of all the strange things that humans did that he didn’t understand.

  
He was afraid of making some big mistake because he didn’t know what was going on.

  
He was afraid that his maker would be disappointed in him.

  
He was afraid That his masters would get fed up with him and cast him out.

  
He was afraid of the war.

  
That he might lose Leia or Luke or Han or Chewie.

  
And...R2-D2 realized with a pang...most of all C-3P0 was afraid of losing him.

  
A little spark of guilt pricked the back of R2-D2s mind. In truth, he'd never really paid that much attention to C-3P0's finicky attitude. Protocol droids could be famously temperamental even at the best of times. It had never occurred to him that this was how he really felt. Every single one of his thought processes, every form of reasoning behind his behavior had somehow been motivated by fear. It had grown so deep into his personality code that it was choking out other programs, it’s tendrils leaching into his registry like an overgrown weed smothering a flower.

  
Of course R2-D2 himself was no stranger to fear. He could well remember how he’d felt when he’d had to make emergency repairs to Padme's ship. The shots ringing in his sensors as the blaster fire rained down on him and his companions. Truth be told, he still wasn't sure how he’d managed to get out of that one unscathed. He’d been through plenty of ordeals since then, but however frightened he might be, he had always been a dogged, some might say stubborn little droid, and it was this resolve that prevented his emotions from interfering with the task at hand. He had no idea what it must be like for C-3P0. To be so deeply, constantly afraid of everything that you have to calculate the odds of surviving every situation down to at least three decimal points. Devoting so much processing power to dealing with his emotions must be a huge drain on his resources, and no doubt it was affecting his performance a good deal, but that still left the question...why now? C-3P0 had been an absolute stresscase for as long as R2-D2 had known him and he'd never crashed like this before. Something must have happened to to act as a catalyst. All R2-D2 had to do was find it.

  
R2-D2 did one last scan of the folder. He had been hoping to find some evidence of a virus, or at the very least some badly corrupted data, but he had found none. Undeterred, he began scanning other folders but again and again he drew a blank, and after a while he felt himself begin to panic. It was ridiculous really… he'd come face to face with giant space worms and bounty hunters and murderous dictators of every possible variety, but nothing had jangled his wires quite so much as the thought he might not see C-3P0 again.

  
Desperately, he cast his mind back to the last time he remembered C-3P0 working normally. He had been in the hanger as usual, tuning a speeder engine when the gold droid had tottered in with a message for Han. He hadn’t caught what was being said, but whatever it was it couldn't have pleased Han much for the two of them began to argue animatedly until he heard Han, having lost his patience entirely, tell C-3P0 in no uncertain terms, to Buck up and quit being such a wimp! He’d then stormed off, leaving C-3P0 to shake his head in exasperation. ‘Impossible man! I was only mentioning, on mistress Leia's behalf, that it might improve his chances of survival if he avoided doing business with the huts in future. It was difficult enough to extricate him from that predicament the first time. I dread to think what might happen if he got himself mixed up with them again.’

  
R2-D2 had chuckled to himself at that. _‘Well he is a bit of a blockhead, even for a human. Still he was right about one thing.’_

  
‘And what exactly might that be?’

  
_‘You are a complete wimp.’_

  
‘Well really…’

  
_‘And a coward.’_

  
‘Artoo Detoo!’

  
_‘It’s a wonder you haven’t shaken yourself to bits you're such a nervous wreck.’_

  
‘I’ve heard quite enough!’ C-3P0 cut in before he could continue. ‘The maker knows why I thought I could expect any sympathy from you. You’re just a glorified screwdriver! And with that he shuffled off, muttering angrily to himself as he went.

  
R2-D2 hadn’t thought much of the exchange at the time, although it had certainly given him a spark of pleasure to get such a good rise out of him. But that was just one of many such occasions. It was how their relationship worked. C-3P0 knew that. He could certainly give as good as he got, In his own way, R2-D2 had the dents to prove it.

  
But Han.

He was a different story.  
He was a human. C-3P0 was programmed to follow his orders, whether he understood them or not. And, if his track record was to be believed, he very often didn’t. But surely even C-3P0 couldn’t be so stupidly literal as to take Hans teasing for a genuine order?  
Quickly, R2-D2 pulled up the settings for C-3P0's emotion chip. It was quite difficult to find right one among the thousands of different options but eventually he spotted it. There, right between self preservation settings and sadness inhibitors, was an entry marked...

  
Parameters for Fear and anxiety protocols

  
Instances recorded 4,66782500

  
Total input: 73.8

  
Maximum behavior modification 0.5*

  
*Warning low behavior modification settings may make your droid more susceptible to hazards. Please see user manual for more information.

  
Of course he could be that stupid.

  
Whether C-3P0 had done this to himself thinking he was following orders, or it was just a glitch in his counterparts' static ridden excuse for a processor, R2-D2 didn’t know. But whatever C-3P0's motivations were, it was clear that he had finally found the source of the problem. It seemed that he had altered the code which controlled how his emotions, specifically fear, affected his behavior. No doubt he thought that if he could block his fears from affecting the way he behaved he would appear braver and more confident. However R2-D2 knew that feelings, even simulated, ones exist for a reason. And while it was inefficient to let yourself be ruled by them, cutting them off entirely could be just as bad. Because no matter how hard you try, they will always be there, building up under the surface like steam under a piston. Without an outlet the pressure would keep building up, meaning C-3P0s processor would need to work ever harder to keep things under control until there was very little left for anything else and...

the whole thing crashed.

  
R2-D2 gave a long bleep of relief. Now he knew what to do.  
It was the work of a moment to change the settings back to the correct levels, but there was still a massive backlog of unprocessed anxiety that needed to be cleared. Otherwise, when he was rebooted C-3P0 might release it _all at once,_ causing him to crash again, Or at the very least reduce him to a gibbering heap of bolts. R2-D2 finished cleaning up the worst of it and then he paused. What was to say that he had to stop there? He could go further. He could delete all those pointless anxieties and foibles that were clogging up his personality code. Heck, he could even rewrite the pathways to make C-3P0 more confident, like he’d wanted. He would be braver and happier, and he’d run much more efficiently. He would be a completely different droid. One that was free of anxiety and stress and didn’t complain. But then... R2-D2 realized with a beep, he wouldn’t be C-3P0 anymore.

  
He may be a fool. A pompous, rusty old fool who never knew when to shut up, but while his whinging was extremely trivial and very annoying, at least it _came_ from a good place. A place that was worried about not being good enough. A place that wanted to keep those he cared about safe. A place that was trying, desperately, to function in a world that he had never been built for.

A place that for all the insults and the bickering and denial…loved.

  
And, Artoo realized, with the certainty that night follows day, was loved in return.

  
The maker knows, he wasn’t perfect the way he was, but was anyone? Droid or human. For R2-D2 to try and change him would make him no better than the ones who’d wiped his memories all those years ago.  
He may be a pompous, rusty old fool…but he was his.

  
At last, everything that R2-D2 could do had been done. Everything that could be fixed had been fixed, and the plight of his counterpart was taken out of his code and into the hands of fate..stubborn bitch that she was. R2-D2 surveyed his work one last time, unplugged himself…And flipped the switch.

  
Nothing happened.

  
And then nothing happened.

  
And then nothing continued not happening.

  
Milliseconds dragged on into actual seconds, which for a droid might as well be an eternity.

  
And then came the blessed whine of a motor starting up, and the light of two yellow eyes as they flickered on. Their owner turned to face R2-D2, his golden face tilted slightly in confusion.  
R2-D2 bleeped in relief. He knew that sound, knew that face.

  
‘ARTOO DETOO! ...where in the STARS have you been! I've been looking all over this horrible dump of a base for yo…….Goodness! However did I end up here?’  
R2-D2 had a whole speech prepared. A nice long one. Full important details like; _How could you be so monumentally thick that you thought faffing about with your own code was a good idea??_ And; _you do realize you had a massive breakdown and said something very unrepeatable Hans actual face?_ And; _Why the hell do you like Bach so much anyway?_ But in that moment all that came out was…

  
_‘Are you alright?’_

  
‘Alright…? Why wouldn't I be alright? I can assure you I'm functioning within normal parameters.’

  
_‘You just had a bit of a…malfunction that’s all.’_

  
‘I most certainly did not.’ C-3P0 looked away, obviously trying to deny having anything to do with it. ‘It was just a minor glitch.’

  
_‘No it wasn’t, you dumbass! It was….. bad...really really bad…. For a second I was worried you were for the scrapheap, but I fixed it now..it's alright. You're alright.’_

  
‘Oh….I see.’

  
They were quiet for a moment, and then C-3P0 stood up, dragging several cables with him.

  
‘Were you really worried about me?’

  
_‘Of course I was you shiny idiot.’_

  
C-3P0 shuffled forward and placed a hand on top of him.‘Thank you my dear.’

  
And for one blissful moment the pretense dropped, and they both knew. They knew but couldn’t say it, they were droids after all, and there were some things that just didn’t translate well into code.

  
_‘Yeah well...just try not to be so utterly useless in future. I can’t spend the whole of my active life cleaning up after you.’_

  
‘I can assure you the feeling is mutual, you overgrown junk pile!’

  
At the back of the room, a Jedi, a general, a wookie and a smuggler exchanged some rather knowing looks.

**Author's Note:**

> Threepio is, quite possibly, the most ridiculously stressed out bean this side of the galaxy, and as someone who suffers from anxiety disorder I thought it might be interesting to explore what it might be like for a machine like Threepio to deal with similar issues.  
> Also, I used a lot of programming jargon in in this, but I have the coding ability of a literal peanut, so please feel free to have a good laugh at my inaccuracies.


End file.
